Goodies Announcement

Just in case you missed
it before, the new Beyond HTML Goodies book is now available!

Go beyond the basics
and learn how the pros add and use dynamic HTML features and advanced
JavaScript techniques. Beyond HTML Goodies demonstrates dozens of new and
different features readers can add to their existing Web pages using HTML and
JavaScript. The book starts with simple text and image tips, such as adding a
clock to a Web page or causing text to appear when the mouse moves over an
image. It gradually builds to more complex tricks, including manipulating forms
or working with cookies behind the scenes. Throughout the book, readers enjoy
Joe's snappy style and "to the point" discussion of each "goody" in the book.

Say "Webster" to an ordinary person (that is, a person whose life has not been
taken over by computers! <g>) and they may think of the dictionary man, or
perhaps the playwright John Webster, but we, of course, know that the word is
really the name for those noble individuals who devote a part of their life to
the propagation of human knowledge and culture by designing and creating web
site on the Internet! Names are like that. They have different meanings to
different people. One set of names, however, is a little different. This set has
a specific meaning. While they may be based on words or names in one of this
planet's spoken languages, they designate specific locations on the Internet,
and are therefore held in high esteem by the aforementioned Websters. They are,
as you have already surmised, Domain Names.

"Ah yes," you nod knowingly, "Domain Names." But do you really know what a
"Domain" name is and how it works? Many of you do, I'm sure, but it is
surprising to me how many questions I am asked every week that have to do with
them, so I though a little closer look might be in order.

Mr. Webster, the dictionary man, tells me that a Domain is "the possessions,
estate or land belonging to one person." On the Internet, real estate takes on a
slightly different hue. An Internet Domain is a collection of addresses
controlled by one server (under the direction, presumably, of a Server
Administrator!) A Domain Name's purpose in life is to provide an easy to
remember way of discovering a numerical internet address. It accomplishes this
through the Domain Name System (DNS) which is a clever, distributed system
(meaning it is made up of a lot of computers working together) for translating
the name into an address. The translation process is called "Resolving" a Domain
Name. A computer involved in the DNS system runs a program called a DNS Resolver.
Here's how it works:

A domain name is made up of two parts, separated by a period, like this:
domainname.com Technically, this is actually two domains, as you will see, but
that's too picky for this type of description! The part following the period is
known as the Top Level Domain, or TLD. In this example the TLD is com -- known
as "dot com" because it always follows the period (dot). Every DNS Resolver has
addresses for "Root" DNS resolvers. These Root resolvers point to computers that
can resolve the Top Level Domains. In our example, they would point to one that
knows about ".com"s, which would in turn have the address of the system that
knows about "domainname". The ".com" resolver is given the information about "domainname"
when "domainname" is registered as "domainname.com". This updating is performed
by a group of service providers known as "Domain Name Registrars". You go to a
Registrar and register your domain name. When you do, they update the TLD
resolvers.

Part of the information required in the registration process is the name of the
DNS resolver(s) that will hold information about domainname.com. The first of
these is called the Primary DNS Server. Information about the domain is updated
in the Primary DNS Server, which will then provide this to "Secondary" DNS
Servers that will hold a copy of the information for use in the event the
Primary becomes unavailable. The TLD servers usually require information about a
Primary and at least one Secondary DNS Server, though several Secondaries can be
provided.

The Primary DNS Server (and subsequently, the Secondaries) stores information
about addresses within the domain. One of the types of address that can be
stored is a "Host" address. There are several others, but that's a story for
another day! A Host is usually a particular computer. For example, you could
have a hostname called "www" (which is very common!) Taken from the initials of
the World Wide Web, this name is frequently used to point to a computer that
houses (hosts) the web site for the domain. By "point to", I mean that the name
is associated with the address of the computer. This association allows a DNS
Resolver to translate www.domainname.com into the address of the computer
hosting the website. When you type "www.domainname.com" into the address bar of
your browser, the first thing the browser does is to use DNS to translate the
name into an address to which it can send a request for a web page.

In this way, the Primary DNS Server for a Domain controls all addresses within
the Domain. By the way, a Domain can contain a "Sub-Domain" -- as in
sub.domainname.com -- which in turn contains Hosts, such as
www.sub.domainname.com That too, is a story for another day. Think about it
though, and you will probably be able to figure out how it works!

Q. I am trying to create printable pages for a large web site. I created
the web site using Macromedia Dreamweaver 4. I have simply copied the code and
pasted into another .htm file without the page background...etc. I was wondering
if any of you know of a simpler way to do this.

A. To create a printable page it will require some sort of scripting.
Basically what the script does is strips out any "include" pages and maybe
images then you have a clean page to print. It can be done using CSS but only
works on Internet Explorer 5.0 and above, so that leaves out anyone using any
other browser. There are many tutorials available on the internet using
different scripts. Do a search for "printer friendly pages" on Google and you
will get a list of links. Here is a link for a tutorial using CSS:
http://www.javascriptkit.com/dhtmltutors/cssmedia.shtm

Q. I am doing testing on a web application. In this application, when
erroneous data is entered an alert is displayed. By default, the caption for
this alert is "microsoft internet explorer". I reported this as a bug. But it
was rejected. Is it not possible to change the caption of the alert?

A. No it is not possible to change the Alert caption. You would have to
set
up your own customized Alert box using DHTML.

Q. I want to have a text box where the person can input what they are
searching for, then have a drop box beside it allowing them to chose which
search engine they want to use, and then have a submit button where when they
click to bring up their search, in the search engine they asked for.
A. You could provide a link like this to reload the document:
<a href="javascript:window.location.reload()">Refresh</a>
When the link is clicked on it would refresh the page.
[If you wish to restore the browser status bar (in Internet Explorer) click
"View/Status Bar"

Q. I have a flash uploaded that I would like to use as an intro...
although it wont play. I might have some thing wrong in my code, so here it is:
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0"
width="550" height="400">
<param name="movie" value="file:///saddam%5B1%5D.swf">
<param name="quality" value="high">
<embed src="file:///saddam%5B1%5D.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="550" height="400"></embed>
</object>

A. Here is a link to a script at Javascriptkit.com that I think meets
your needs:
http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/cut130.shtml

Q. I have noticed that some of my internal pages will come up on a search
engine. Is there anyway that I can have these visitors redirected to the main
home page instead of having them link to a page that is basically out of the
flowing order of the site?

A. You might try using document.referrer to check where they came from
and if it is not the page you want then redirect them to it. Something like
this:
<script language="JavaScript">
if(document.referrer!="http://www.yourpage.com/index.html")
{location.href="http://www.yourpage.com/index.html"}
</script>
You would place the above in the head section at the very beginning. The
drawback to this script is that if they go to this document from anywhere in
your site other than the document specified it will redirect them to that one
document (page).
[You can also prevent specific pages from being indexed in (most) search
engines; see:
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters/210.html
about halfway down the title piece there is a discussion of the ROBOT Meta tag
and Robots.txt -- Ed.]

IP Steals Spotlight at Storage Show in Phoenix
[April 14, 2003] Leading vendors from all over the country assemble to show
off their progress in developing new storage products or demonstrate
interoperability with partners at the SNW 2003 show.

Kinko's Goes Wireless [April 14, 2003] The chain of stores, known for making copies, has long
provided Internet access. It will soon have over 1000 locations outfitted
with Wi-Fi for that purpose, courtesy of T-Mobile Hotspot.

Hilton Battles Hotel Discounters
[April 14, 2003] The hotel company signs a new 'direct-connect' deal with
Expedia and rolls out a new online reservation pricing strategy aimed at
providing rate consistency.

Every week a site selected each week for review. Each week,
reviews of the previous week's selected site are chosen for
publication on the HTML Goodies website.

The current week's selected site is published in Goodies To
Go and in the Peer Reviews section of the website.
Current contact email addresses for submitting your site and
for submitting reviews are published in Goodies To Go.

If you would like to have your site reviewed, sign up for
the Goodies To Go newsletter in the Navigation Bar on the
left side of this page.

Did you ever wish your newsletter was an easy two way communications medium?
Ploof! It now is!
If you would like to comment on the newsletter or expand/improve on something
you have seen in here, you can now send your input to:

We already receive a lot of email every day. This address will help us sort out
those relating specifically to this newsletter from all the rest. When you send
email to this address it may wind up being included in this section of the
newsletter, to be shared with your fellow readers.
Please don't send your questions to this address.
They should be sent to our mentors: see
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/mentors/

Greg Ozzimo, the Webmaster at the USCG Training Center in
Yorktown, was concerned by my depiction of the "Jack of all
trades, master of none." he asks me to "please don't get
hung up on the word 'master'.
The IT world throws titles around all day and it means
nothing." That's true, Greg, but my point is that while the
word "Webmaster" may have been applicable in the early days
of the web, the technology involved has grown so much that
it is unrealistic to expect a single person to do a
masterful job on all aspects of web development. Greg also
indicates that "Web Jack just doesn't cut it - that sounds
really stupid." Sorry Greg, that was meant to be
tongue-in-cheek humor.

Also, many thanks to Richard Boehm for pointing this out
(regarding last week's Q&A):
"On the page you want to link to you place the NAME ANCHOR
in the spot on the page you want to jump to:
<a href="jump">Jump Here</a>
On the page you are coming from, the link would look like
this:
<a href="#jump">Click here to Jump</a>
Should read:
On the page you want to link to you place the NAME ANCHOR in
the spot on the page you want to jump to:
<a name="jump">Jump Here</a>
On the page you are coming from, the link would look like
this:
<a href="jumppage.htm#jump">Click here to Jump</a>
Absolutely correct, Richard; the example given would only
work if the "from" link was on the same page as the "to"
anchor.

1865 President Lincoln shot.
At Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., John Wilkes Booth, an
actor and Confederate sympathizer, shot and killed President
Abraham Lincoln. Booth entered Lincoln's private theater box
unnoticed, and shot the president once in the back of his
head. He then jumped onto the stage and shouted "Sic semper
tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]--the South is avenged!"
Booth was pursued by the army and the secret service and was
finally trapped in a barn in Bowling Green, Virginia. The
barn was set on fire and (it is believed) Booth fatally shot
himself.

1912 RMS Titanic hits an iceberg.
Today is also the day that the Titanic failed to correct its
course enough to avoid collision with an iceberg, which tore
its hull open. Believed to have been unsinkable, the Titanic
lacked sufficient lifeboats for the number of crew and
passengers on board. 1,500 perished in the icy waters as the
ship sank. About 700, mostly women and children, survived.

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